Great Mountain Days in the Lake District - Walks in the Lakes

Fifty memorable expeditions on the high fells of Lakeland. Graded circular routes equally suitable for the moderately adventurous walker looking for undiscovered areas and for the less experienced walker starting out on the fells.

The beating heart of this guide is a love of the fells. These 50 fell walks have been specially devised to help readers get to know the fells and – with a new sense of confidence and adventure – to enjoy England’s most majestic mountain environment to the full.

Each circular route, between 4 and 14 miles in length, is tailor-made to suit walkers early in their fell-walking careers – those confident in their country-walking fitness and prepared, when the elements conspire, to test their mountain navigation with map and compass – as well as more experienced walkers. What excitements lie in store! Feel yourself invigorated by breathing the good clean mountain air, stamping on firm rock, treading winding ridge-top trails, and gazing at richly patterned fellsides and across high-ridged horizons. From these and many more sensations progressively comes a oneness with this special place. In time Lakeland’s mountain heritage becomes yours, treasured within unique memories of Great Mountain Days.

There is a buzz in fell walking that ordinary country walking cannot match. It requires effort and energy for a start. You might ask how on earth you are ever going to grasp the complexities of the fells, the ridges and dales, the lakes and tarns, the rivers and becks, the maze of paths, and the individual fells themselves. The answer is that, surreptitiously, over the course of time, they begin to come together in your mind – you’ll know them first from one angle, then another. The routes in this guide form the nuts and bolts of that discovery, a tapestry to follow or creatively embroider.

Clearly there can be no one definitive list of such walks – praise be for that! While many horseshoe routes are popular and have a natural symmetry, the real magic of Lakeland lies in the sheer diversity of choice, limited only by the imagination. Permutations on a theme abound. Some people have a systematic approach to their days in the hills and love ordered lists – hence the bagging of Birkett, Nuttall or Wainwright summits – so there will be those who choose to log all 50 walks in the same tidy manner. Whether you tick them off, or use them as an initiation by which you gain sufficient confidence to roam, by entering into the spirit of a Great Mountain Day you are assured of life-enriching experiences.

As confidence grows, so too does ambition; and with knowledge may come a yearning for special places to seek out beyond the range of this guide. Experience will give you the ability to craft bigger, bolder walks. One may even plan to walk the length of a range or engage in a tour of several days linking valleys or landmark summits. The magic in the creation of one’s own walks soon takes hold, and this book will be consulted less frequently. But the selection will hold good as a fount of seasoned ideas quietly resting in your bookshelf in readiness for the moment you come calling again.

During your Great Mountain Days you will experience the pleasure of being in wild places and of sharing encounters with kindred spirits. There is a fellowship in the fells, both in the people you meet and in the fells themselves. They are dependable, always there – a shoulder to cry on in bad times, a haven of joyous elation at others.

About the Guide

The 50 walks in the guide are ordered in a clockwise spiral around the Lake District – the book starts from the springboard of the Langdales and gathers in the Coniston and Duddon Fells before heading north for Eskdale and the craggy giants of Wasdale. Sweeping further north via wild Ennerdale and sublime Buttermere the guide crosses Honister into Borrowdale, where the high fell ridges wrestle for attention, then ventures onto the sleek North-Western and Northern Fells before heading down Thirlmere to Ambleside. Switching north again the book strikes over Kirkstone for Ullswater, then back south over the Nan Bield Pass to end in the transitional dale of Longsleddale, where Lakeland horizons blend with the more benign Pennines. This arrangement gives a natural mountain focus from the common entry point of many walking visitors, arriving from the south via the M6 corridor.

At the start of each route description is a box containing all the key information for the walk: the distance, height gain, time and grade, as well as places for refreshment after the walk. Also provided near the start of the walk are details of suitable parking places. To compare and contrast the 50 walks, consult the Concise Walk Reference (Appendix 1), which summarises all the route information to help you fit the walk to the occasion.

Timings
Because of the variety of terrain encountered on these walks a clear indication of the time involved is given based upon how long it actually took the author, bearing in mind that he is no spring chicken and readily presses his pause button to capture a good view in his camera lens or consider the route.
Strong fell walkers will find the times very generous, but why rush? The fells are full of magical views and unexpected crannies to explore. The timings allow for these distractions – for me the heart of the walks.

Walk grades
In order to give a sense of the degree of effort and mountain craft involved in each route, three grades have been employed to categorise the walks.

• Energetic: devoid of serious hazard, requiring straightforward map-reading skills on largely secure paths, in normal circumstances involving up to 6 hours walking.
• Strenuous: far more commiting in terms of time and energy. Set aside a full 8-hour day and be prepared to be remote from valley bases.
• Arduous: an altogether rougher, tougher encounter with the possibility of mild scrambling. Scrambling requires composure and a good head for heights, and several optional scrambling sections occur on routes in this guide.

Scrambling
Numerous routes inevitably tackle steep broken slopes, and on occasion this turns into actual hands-on-rock scrambling. Unroped scrambling can be one of the most dangerous mountain activities. You should take great care, and if you feel unable to comfortably manage a route you should take an alternative.

Even modest scrambling can have the potential for hazard, especially for anyone unaccustomed to the mountain environment. Misty, windy, wet, icy or snowy conditions conspire to turn such encounters into serious mountaineering. Most caution is needed when rocky ground is encountered during a descent. At such times even walking poles can get in the way; always take your time and have confidence in your footing.

There are genuine, though invariably brief, scrambling encounters on the following 16 walks – 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 27, 30, 34, 35, 43 and 44. Any mountain walk can be hazardous in poor weather, so never dismiss the sound advice that retreat is always the greater valour.

If you are not confident scrambling, the walks nearly always provide an alternative walking-only route. Various local guides and outdoor centres offer training in straightforward mountaineering. Cicerone and other publishers have a range of books on techniques, and if you really enjoy scrambling sections, try Cicerone’s Scrambles in the Lake District books (see Appendix 3).